A Los Angeles-based nonprofit opened an early childhood center specifically for children whose families are seeking asylum in the United States. This center is one of the only places available where migrant children can play and learn for free.

Four fathers fleeing death threats from gangs in Central America traveled thousands of miles to reach the safety they saw in the U.S. border. Then immigration officials forced them to hand over their children.

The men were together when officials came to take their children about two weeks ago. They haven’t been able to talk to their children even by phone since then, they said.

“They took him without clothes, without my authorization,” said Eric Matute Castro, 33, one of the fathers, about his three-year-old son Roger. “I don’t know where he is. I don’t know how he is doing. I don’t know if he is hurt. I don’t know anything.”

Asylum seekers are generally held in detention after they arrive at the border. Only a few detention centers around the U.S. are equipped to hold families together, and because of court cases, there are rules about how long children can be held.

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As a result, families are often released more quickly.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said some smuggling organizations have tried to use children to minimize the risk of being detained at the border, so under current policy, its officers check claimed familial relationships closely. The agency said that its officers couldn’t verify relationships between the four men and the children they brought with them.

The men, three Salvadorians and one Honduran, ended up together in a holding cell while ICE processed them to determine whether or not they would be detained. Their children, a one-year-old boy, three-year-old Roger, a five-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy played together in the cell.

They spent several days going between the cell in ICE’s offices in downtown San Diego and a hotel to sleep while officers worked on their cases.

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On November 16, an officer told them that they would have to separate from their children.

The four men said no, they wouldn’t do it.

Officials came two more times to explain to them that they were not going to be able to stay with the children. The men again declined to relinquish them.

The last time, four officials came. The men with young sons held them tightly in their arms, the children clutching the men and crying. The other two children grabbed their fathers.

Walter Ramirez Aviles, 42, said he was the first to let go of his daughter because he didn’t want her to get hurt.

“What’s happening?” he recalled Sofia saying. “You made me a promise that you would take me to where the princesses are.”

He told her to be strong and that everything would be OK.

When an official began to pull his son out of his arms, Matute similarly gave in.

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“I had to do it because they could have fractured a little hand or a little foot or something,” Matute said. “So I — I let go.”

The men were taken to Otay Mesa Detention Center. The children went to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which has shelters for unaccompanied minors across the country and also places children with families through foster care.

Unless ICE changes its determination in the men’s relationships with the children, each will now have a separate asylum case in the immigration court system. That means that a father could lose his case while the child wins, or vice versa.

Asylum seekers, like refugees, have to prove that they were persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, politics or membership in a particular social group. Because of the backlog in immigration court, asylum proceedings can often take well over a year.

Earlier this year, then-Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said that he was considering splitting children from parents at the border as a deterrent to migration.

Felix Luciano, head of the local union that represents ICE officers, said policy in the last year has required officers to scrutinize claimed family relationships more closely. What once could be validated with a sworn statement from a relative or friend now requires verifiable documents.

The agency also contacts consulates for help identifying parents of arriving children.

Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for ICE, said that Enforcement and Removal Operations officers are still working to determine the identities of the children’s parents, in some cases through consulates.

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Because the relationships couldn’t be verified at the time, Mack said that the children were separated “out of concern for the safety of the child.”

“ICE disputes claims about mistreatment,” Mack said. “Individuals transferred to our custody are processed in a professional manner by ERO officers at all times.”

One of the men, Jose Fuentes, 30, had traveled through Mexico with a migrant caravan organized by activists. He contacted the activists after one-year-old Mateo was taken from him.

Several groups launched a campaign to reunite the men with the children.

“It’s very traumatizing for both the children and their fathers after they suffered so much trauma on the way to the border,” said Erika Pinheiro, policy director at Al Otro Lado, at a rally this week outside the detention center.

She said the U.S. shouldn’t punish asylum seekers and that because of the kind of violence that they’re fleeing in their home countries, this won’t stop them from coming.

Since the men’s story first came out, others have contacted the organization to tell similar stories, she said.

In fiscal 2017, through August, the most recent data published by Customs and Border Protection, San Diego received 5,158 family units at ports of entry.

Border Patrol in the San Diego sector apprehended 2,782 family units in the same time period.

An ICE official said most family cases end up at the Texas border rather than in San Diego.

All four fathers said they are fleeing gang-related violence in their home countries. They faced extortion, death threats and more, they said.

Matute realized that his life was in danger in Honduras after a man tried to take his house from him and was so frightened that he left that same day with his son without even packing clothes. His partner, his son’s mother, is hiding until she can save enough money to join them.

With the kindness of strangers and friends along the way, he was able to get money to feed his son and get rides up to Tijuana. They arrived at night, he said, and Tijuana scared him.

He didn’t know how to get to the U.S., he said, so when he found the border fence he followed it until he saw a light on the other side and an immigration vehicle parked. He jumped the fence with his son and headed for the vehicle to ask for help, he said.

He is the only of the four fathers who did not go to a port of entry to ask for asylum.

Carlos Batres Aguilar, 40, left El Salvador with his wife and two sons after they were threatened by MS-13, a gang that began in Los Angeles and gained power in Central America after members were deported there.

The gang wanted to kill him, force his wife to be a sex worker and force his older son to join them, he said.

He and his wife agreed that if something happened on their journey north and they needed to split up, he would stay with the older son, 12-year-old Dominic. She would stay with the younger son, seven-year-old Diland.

In April, they had to jump out of a truck in Chiapas and run to avoid detection by Mexican authorities, he said. They were separated as they ran.

Both pairs eventually made it to the U.S. border at different times. His wife crossed first with Diland and was released. They are living in Detroit and waiting for their asylum hearing.

Batres said he hoped all four could be reunited while they wait, but if not, he hoped to at least be back with Dominic.

“I feel like a failure because I wasn’t able to give him stability and security and to come all the way here and —,” he said, pausing. “My son is suffering again. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done being separated from them for all this time.”

He has a close relationship with Dominic, he said. The two spent Saturdays together playing basketball and watching movies.

Fuentes left El Salvador with his partner and two sons after they also faced threats from a gang.

“It was a question of survival,” Fuentes said.

They joined the migrant caravan in Tapachula and came north. His partner is still in Tijuana, waiting to find out what happens to him.

He said she has been able to call where Mateo is to check on him, but when he tries to call he’s denied access.

Lauren Mack said ICE is investigating the phone call issue.

Ramirez Aviles also fled El Salvador with his family.

He left first with his oldest daughter, who is 20 years old, after he found out that gang members were sexually assaulting her in exchange for his family’s safety.

After an arduous journey to Tijuana with her, he went back for his wife and two younger daughters. On that second journey, he carried Sofia’s bicycle because she’d just learned to ride it and couldn’t bear to part with it, he said.

Eventually, they all reunited in Tijuana and decided to ask for asylum in the U.S.

He and Sofia walked up to the port of entry together while his wife went with the other two daughters.

His oldest daughter was detained by herself. The family hasn’t heard from her, he said.

His wife and other daughter were eventually released and are living in Los Angeles while they wait for their asylum hearing.

He is sad to be separated from them, but he is glad they are all in a safe place, he said. He feels like a burden has been lifted.

“From the moment I decided to come ask for help in the U.S., I knew it wouldn’t be an easy thing,” Ramirez Aviles said. “I’m here with the conviction that I’m following U.S. law. I bless the law of this land. I bless this land. I’m going to find my daughter.”

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